


I am not there, I do not sleep

by ChuckTaylorUpset



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Badass Yasha, But he's getting better, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Lorenzo - Freeform, Morally Grey Fjord, Not Canon Compliant, Or I suppose a Yasha knew fic, Yasha Centric Character Study, Yasha finds out fic, Yasha pov, eventually, so we all know what that means, so you know what youre in for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChuckTaylorUpset/pseuds/ChuckTaylorUpset
Summary: In which the Stormlord comes too late and sends word of a death to his champion.  Yasha fights to escape, and violence is easier than self-reflection and boredom.  Yasha finds out that Molly is dead.





	I am not there, I do not sleep

A cry of faith is not the same as a cry of sound. Faith lingers longer, its echo is not measured by something as insubstantial as air. Had Yasha merely been attempting to make a sound there would be no helping her, and there would be nothing to find but an empty field and some blood soaked dirt.  
But she did cry out in faith. And so it was that hours later when a single stray cloud made its way across the sky it soaked up the remnants of that cry like a sponge submerged in water and it carried word swiftly to the storm god.

  
A thick mist swept across the field, chilling the air and coating the grass with dew. The surrounding air pressure fell fast enough to make an ear pop and in that moment a god stepped onto the ground.

  
The Stormlord’s form was massive, with muscles that bulged like a sack stuffed with cotton near to bursting. His eyes were the color of a cloud full of rain and seemed to pierce the dense mist without trouble. The Stormlord had come to answer his champion's call, but too late.

  
He turned from his search of the field and instead sent out a pulse of his magic to flow from himself to his champion. But where the magic should have ended its journey inside his chosen mortal like a wave come to rest on a shore, it instead broke upon a wall. Around him a cold wind began to blow, stirring up the still mist until it churned and swirled.

  
The Stormlord sent forth another pulse of magic. This one traveled slower and when it broke upon the wall it was in search of any hidden crack for the magic to trickle through. It found nothing. His champion was not within his reach, which meant the power he lent her was not within hers.

  
With their connection also went the Stormlord's means of watching over her. Without it, he had next to no hope of finding her again. A god can raze a continent, but to scry a single person was a task with delicacy that went against a god’s very nature. One would just as soon call upon a storm to fill a cup. Whatever dangers had found his champion, she would have to face them on her own.

  
The wind picked up in speed, dispersing the mist and carrying it away in large tufts. The Stormlord desperately extended his senses to the field around him, searching for any trace of familiar magic. He was rewarded with the faintest hint of her essence, and quick as lightning he went to it. He arrived not at the side of his champion but by a purple creature sleeping on the ground, curled under garb so brilliant the Stormlord could have spotted it from the sky.

  
With no small amount of curiosity, the Stormlord picked at the small sample of his champion’s magic, trying to unravel the reason for its mysterious presence. He peeled back layer upon layer and saw its heart. In the center of the seed was a promise that had grown into a ritual that had grown into worship. And so it made the creature in front of him akin to a small god.

  
The god paused a moment to consider his options. He couldn’t afford to spend much more time in one place on one mortal. He would not be able to find his champion within that time. But here before him was a small creature that could follow threads too small for a god to see with time a god did not have. The mortal before him might see the Stormlord's champion sooner than his connection to her would be restored. It would be wise to create some way to keep an eye on him.

  
He considered the familiar seed of magic before him, absentmindedly maneuvering the layers open and shut with his magic. Then with a flick of his will he sent a pulse of his magic forward to cup the seed. A chill settled over the mortal's form as the Stormlord’s blessing took root, overwhelming their natural cold resistance. The Stormlord watched as they briefly shivered in their sleep. Then the god turned his face up toward the sky. For the briefest second the air around him filled with the crackling smell of a lightning strike, and then the god was gone.

  
Overhead, a cold wind began to push in dark snow clouds from the north.

 

* * *

The Stormlord catches up to his usual existence, prayers to answer and people to smite, weather to arrange and other gods to visit and appease. So it is understandable that he does not think about his lost champion much. It is never wise for a god to favor one mortal too much anyway. The Stormlord has many enemies who would love to make use of that. Gods often find that whatever energy spent saving mortal from danger will quickly have to be expended again and again to keep them out of it. And they can only be saved for so long.

When gods play games, mortals are the biggest losers.

  
There is a reason even a god's favorite mortal would be granted only a little power at a time, so that they might grow used to it and to the dangers that come with it. The other reason is that loading mortals with power too quickly tends to make them go mad. Or explode.

  
The point is that it is not out of negligence or apathy that the Stormlord is far and away when he feels the soul around his blessing cave and die. But he is away, and must again arrive upon the scene too late, faced with a dead body and a dilemma.

  
The Stormlord had blessed a promise and by blessing it involved himself. The code of the gods dictated that it was his duty to inform the remaining party of the change in terms

.  
Technically he does not have to. He is bound by honor by oath, he has been chained by his choice not his being, and he could easily choose not to. The beings involved are small and ignorant and would never know that they had been slighted. Besides, he does not even know where his champion is and as has been established, the gods are already so very busy.

  
But he does not want to cheat his champion on anything. Even if the price is small. Even if she would never know.

  
She is still gone from his sight, still hidden, so he seeks out someone who knows what lies in hidden places.

 

* * *

"Hail and well met, Traveler." It takes forever and no time at all for the Stormlord to find the god he seeks. The god of travel is never in any one place for very long, but always leaving one destination for the next one, eternally existing on the crossroads. It makes him a nightmare to track down.

  
"My Lord of Storms," replies the Traveler without looking, or so the Stormlord assumes. The other god’s chosen avatar does not wear his face visible, instead hidden in perpetual shadow by the hood of his cloak. Or perhaps he has simply chosen not to have a face at all. “I hope you do not find me rude my lord, but I must confess you find me at a rather busy moment.”

  
As he speaks the Traveler’s movements are ceaseless. The Stormlord keeps apace as they pass unseen throughout the material plane. One moment they are in a bakery and then they are at a roadside, at a tavern, at a bookshop, another bakery, a crowded room. The places blur by quickly, and there is a mania to the Traveler that indicates this is not simple restlessness.

  
"Does something trouble you, Traveler?" The Stormlord asks. He hopes so. It is easier to ask a favor from a god who needs one in kind.

  
The Traveler spins round to face the Stormlord, his cloak billowing out behind him. For a moment the Stormlord thinks that he means to make use of his powers over hidden doors and secret paths to slip away. The cloak swirls back into place and the Traveler remembers himself. “I’ve just misplaced something, but I’m sure it’ll turn up. Nothing you need to trouble yourself with. Did you need something, my lord?”

  
The Traveler tacks on the title on the end, charting a path dangerously close to rude. The Traveler’s power is sideways and slippery. He cannot afford to insult the Stormlord directly, nor could he win the head on fight that would follow. The Stormlord knows this, knows that this makes the Traveler his safest option.

  
(The Traveler is also a trickster god, the safest option is not without its dangers.)

  
"I need a message delivered to a mortal pledged to me, but they are hidden from my sight.”

  
“What is this regarding?” The Traveler asks.

  
The Stormlord hesitates but a moment before replying. “I need to pass on the news of the passing of their friend. A wild purple creature they had made a promise to.”

 

“Purple?” The Traveler frowns, and then with a magician’s flourish produces a page of parchment. “Like this?”

 

On the parchment is a colorfully inked drawing of a horned mortal in a garish coat. “That’s the one. How did you know?"

  
"Lucky guess." The Traveler flips the page and examines it. “Looks like he got himself claimed by the Moonweaver, which is lucky for you. I am god of travel, finder of forgotten places and wandering souls. I don’t track missing people. But if you deliver news of the passing of one of the lying goddess’ we might have a chance. I would, of course, be happy to accompany you to the goddess."

  
A moment ago the Stormlord would have been happy for anything that was likely to make the Traveler more helpful, but now this strange streak of charity is suspicious. "No need to accompany me. I'm sure you're busy. I can make my case to the Moonweaver on my own."

  
The Traveler snorts at this. "And how will you find her? I don't suppose you've been chatty together up there in the sky. Your natures don't seem all that suited to each other. Come!" He reaches up as if to sling his arm around the Stormlord's shoulders, then takes note of the height difference between their avatars and reaches around his ribs instead. "Let's go find us a goddess."

  
The search for the goddess is short. They have barely stepped from their meeting place to the divine plane when they find her, as if she had been waiting there all along.

  
"Ah, the Mistress of Misdirection herself!" The Traveler leans forward to kiss the hand of the Moonweaver.

  
Her face is pale and round. Her body is not as full as it will be at the end of the moon phase, but already she grows plump with the changing of time. She wears a black half veil pinned in her hair, which is so white it is luminescent and falls like a train almost to her ankles.

  
"Well met Traveler. An honor, my lord. And what brings you to me on this day?"

  
"We were wondering if you could help us locate some wayward mortals to take news of the death of one who sang your praises." The Traveler says.

  
"Can you do such a thing?" The Stormlord asks.

  
The Moonweaver gives a small smile. "My lord, I am a goddess of lies. To conceal from your eyes, even accidentally is to light a beacon in mine."

"Have these mortals hidden accidentally?"

The Moonweaver turns to the Traveler. "And what brings you here?"

  
The Traveler shrugs. "Figured I'd play messenger for you. You give the location, I bring the goods."

  
"You? Bring the news of the death of one of my worshippers? That would be so callous of me. I insist I bring the news myself."

  
"Oh but let me accompany you anyway."

  
"Your assistance is not needed. Nor is your aid in these negotiations, the Stormlord can speak for himself, can he not?"

  
"Of course." The Stormlord says. "Thank you for your help, I will keep you no longer."

  
The Traveler hums with nervous energy and the world around them seems to speed up.

  
"Either bargain for the location outright or begone."

  
The Traveler leaves.

  
"And you, my lord," The Moonweaver turns to him. "Will you be needing the mortal's location?"

  
The temptation is palpable. "No. The message will be enough. I have faith she will return to me. If she does not, she is not worth the power I've given her."  
"Of course. If we could discuss the payment?”

  
He passes on the message, a lightning charge springing between their fingers. He sends the Moonweaver off with a cloak of fog wrapped around her shoulders and his business is done.

 

* * *

Yasha knows the slavers that imprisoned her were not nice people, but it seemed they had gone out of their way to leave their captives in the worst way to travel possible. With her wrists and ankles chained together behind her back there is no way to brace or balance as the cart rattles its way down the road. She can feel a fresh layer of bruises form on top of the ones that came with her capture. The journey is made all the more unnerving by the fact that she cannot hear any of the usual sounds that accompany travel; no clop of horse hooves or creaking wheels, only disorientating silence. She cannot see beyond the bounds of the illusion so there is no scenery to mark their passing or way to tell where they are being taken.

  
Despite the odds against her, Yasha has tried her best to keep her bearings. They have been fed twice since they had been captured, when the caravan stopped for rest. Yasha reasons this meant only two days had passed.

  
The only break in this pattern had come earlier that day, when not an hour after they began moving the cart stopped again. Yasha had been unable to see or hear anything, but it had been too early for a break. Yasha had wondered if they had stopped to hunt for more captives while she sat bound and helpless to do anything, but it was only a minute or two later that they had begun moving again.

  
This has been Yasha's existence, lying bound and caged without sight or sound and nothing to do but silently stare at Jester and Fjord.  
She wishes it were not so. It would be easier not to resent Fjord if she didn't have to keep looking at him.

  
Despite the only thing of note to look at being each other, Fjord has been resolute in avoiding Yasha's eyes. He was attempting to be subtle, but it was so obvious even someone as bad at people as Yasha could pick up on it. Jester had been making heaps of eye contact. Yasha had been worried, it was so easy to worry about Jester with her princess pretty airs and her sheltered life. Yasha had looked at Jester, so clearly shaken by her capture and been afraid. Jester after her first night had filled her days making faces at Yasha. It was difficult to make faces with a gag in her mouth, but she was adapting admirably. But by comparison Fjord's inability to look at her or Jester was made all the more apparent. At first, she had thought he was memorizing the cage, searching for weakness. Then she thought it was guilt keeping him from looking at her. But it was not guilt or resolve that kept his eye. It was resignation.

  
Yasha's thoughts went to her book of manners and what had become of it, unaware that it had been ripped in half and used for kindling on the first night. When the book had been whole, Yasha had read a section about when the proper times to use fine china. This had been somewhat confusing to find out about. Most every meal Yasha had ever eaten had been cooked in an iron pot and served on a wooden plate. The fact that people would eat on something as delicate as china, that they didn't chose their dishes based on what was cheap or what could easily be carried in a sack was baffling.

  
But Fjord looked at her like she was fine china. Like their friendship had been a luxury he had allowed himself, and now was the time to put it back on a shelf, out of sight less he torture himself with memories of an easier time. It was so practical. So impersonal. Fjord did not hate her. He simply was trying to prepare himself that if such a time came that he would have to choose between risking himself and helping her he would make the right choice.

  
She thinks she would hate him, if it were not so obvious he had not abandoned Jester in the same way. When he was able to bring himself to look at her, there was still tenderness. She thinks that Jester has wormed her way into their hearts, and is not so easily dislodged.

  
Still, it is hard to know that he has given up so quickly. It reminds her that there was a time when she would have done the same.

  
By the time she had first joined the circus Yasha's only loyalty was to herself. Knowledge had been cut in bone deep that she had to take care of herself because no one else ever would. The only constant she could count on was herself and her god. The circus and the outside world were brief interludes from what she had believed was her true existence, being alone and on the move.

  
She had liked Molly alright then. He had himself mostly figured out by that point. It had taken her a while to get used to his smile. Molly smiled like he knew a secret the world didn't, like he was daring people to ask him. It made the customers stepping up for the cards go wild and unnerved people the rest of the time. She was always waiting for Molly to need to ask something of her. But on long stretches of open road she discovered that what others took as provocation was just the sight of Molly's most authentic self, and while aspects of it were performance it was not one that required a specific reaction only witnessing and thought. Molly never needed her to talk.

* * *

 

  
But after the second time Yasha had left and come back Molly had gotten clingy. He found excuses to follow her to the tents, to do chores in her area. It was stifling enough that Yasha wanted to scream.

Yasha had been waiting for her movement habits to become too much and to force her to move on as they always did

  
"I hate that you can't tell me when you leave. I hate that I never know when I'm going to see you." It was not the question she had been expecting. She had been waiting for Molly to demand answers. To cloy as so many other people had cloyed. She had forgotten that Molly had never asked her for anything. It’s what made him fit in so well with the circus, the fact that he had an inability to ask assholes to be anything but themselves.

  
She didn't know what to say. Molly was clearly upset, but she couldn't do the normal people things like promise to tell him when she left.

"Molly," she had said. "I'll come back. Every time I go, I will come back. And the last time, I'll say goodbye before I leave." And then she had to go.

  
She had expected to have to prove herself, to have to return again and again in a process that would leech the anxiety from his body slowly. Instead, the very next time she had arrived Molly had greeted her languidly, all hints of apprehension evaporated. It was as if her absences were no different than going into a neighboring tent.

Yasha held that memory in her mind, set her breathing to the rhythm of the cart's movement and focused. Fjord did not matter. Her capture did not matter. Whatever would come, would come, and she would endure it and she would beat it and she would come back to Molly and there was no need for worry because there existed no other possibility for what would happen.

* * *

  
The cart stopped for the night. Yasha had grown bored of playing faces with Jester forever ago and was just waiting for their captors to get around to remembering to give them food. Her limbs were heavy and aching but even worse than that she was bored out of her skull.

  
A bit of moonlight began to shine into the cart and onto Yasha's face. She squinted and instinctively brought her hand up to her face to block it. For the first time in almost three days the movement did not cause her to yank against her chafing bonds. Yasha's mind went blank, all thoughts of the moonbeam forgotten as she brought her hand up to for inspection. The metal that had joined her wrists had broken off, and the cuff that remained had thin cracks in jagged lines, like someone had laid a spider web over her cuffs and it had burned through the metal. She flicked her wrist and the cuff came apart in pieces and fell to the floor.

  
She looked to Fjord and Jester and found their faces full of a surprise that mirrored her own. Yasha looked to the floor and picked up a piece that had broken off in a jagged triangular shape. She yanked Jester round and furiously shoved it into the lock of her cuffs. She was jiggling the metal back and forth desperately when Jester abruptly brought her hands up, knocking the metal from Yasha's hands. Yasha turned to Jester and saw she was frantically jerking her head towards the cage door. Yasha followed her gaze and saw a hand wrapped around one of the bars.

  
Yasha moved like a panther preparing to strike, placing herself just in front of the door in a crouch. The door to the cage swung away and disappeared outside the bounds of the illusion. Replacing it came a leather armored thug. Yasha sprung forward and grabbed the man by the collar and hauled him into the top of the frame of the cage door. She slammed him once, twice, his movements becoming clumsy and disoriented as his brain rattled in his head. Before she could bring him in for a third strike he jabbed forward with his fist. She rolled with the motion and then brought his head towards the door again, but his other hand came up and braced against her move. The thug brought his free hand down and broke her grip and shoved her back.

  
By the time she got back up again he had moved beyond the bounds of the illusion. She leapt forward blindly only to be smacked in the face as the cage door came swinging back. She searched wildly for any chance to grab the thug before he locked the door and stepped out of reach and found his hand retreating from its grip on the bars. Her hand shot forward and dragged his hand back into the cage until she could pull no further. Then she wrenched the hand to the side, felt the resistance of the elbow joint and then felt that resistance give.

  
She dropped his arm, every fiber of her being screaming at her to hurry. She reached around the cage door and plucked the keys from the lock and then turned back to her friends.

  
Fjord looked at her with wide scared eyes. He looked like he was waiting for her to break his heart, like he knew she was going to run and every moment she waited was just unnecessary torture. She wanted to prove him wrong. She wanted to go to him and make him understand like she had that he wasn't alone anymore. But what if he left Jester?

  
She reached for Fjord and pulled him to her, thrusting the key into the lock. There were three keys on the ring. The first didn't even fit in the lock. The second felt like it was a turn away from working but each time she move it the lock held fast. The third key was the smallest and slipped in without trouble. She turned it and nothing happened. She slammed it back and forth in the lock harder and harder, begging it to work.

  
The blow to the back of her head hit so hard she saw stars. She pitched over Fjord. Looking behind her she saw a new thug standing over her, club in hand. Instead of getting to her feet, Yasha kept low and launched herself at the thug's legs, throwing them both out of the cage. She hit the ground at a roll and got up to two other people flanking her. She could hear the screams man whose arm she had broken into the cage door. And then the human on her right was swinging a sword at her.

  
She reached deep down within herself for her sharpest rage and the might of the power given by her god. She fought like a rat in a cage. She fought like a rabid animal, like disease had cut away all other pieces of her brain except the part that said fight. She could feel the divine power behind each of her fists as she hit them again and again and again.

  
None of it mattered. They threw her, bound and chained again, at their leader's feet. One of them kicked her, and then stepped away to rub his hands where she had made rows of red impressions with her teeth.

  
The thugs had looked at her like she was a dog, like she was something wild that was going to bite.

  
Yasha had a hard time explaining why she was so wary of dogs. The dogs she had grown up with in her village were mangy and strung out; liable to bite children as they searched for scraps. The children she had grown up with were liable to bite back. Yasha herself had eaten three or four dogs in her time, and the confusion she felt when someone talked about a beloved childhood pet was comparable to a mix of watching somebody going up to pet a wild animal and hearing a friend talk about how clever and clean their pet pig is.

  
Their leader stood above her, a solid wall of muscle, like somebody had stacked slabs of meat until they made a person. Yasha could smell burning skin from here. Yasha had been looked at warrior to warrior and she had been looked at civilian to threat but the man before her looked so completely unafraid of her. As if he could imagine no possible world where she pose a threat, and the feel of that gaze burned.

  
Lorenzo looked at her like she was an untamed pet, not a wild creature. Like her obedience was an inevitability.

  
"Good to see that you've still got that fire," he said. "Although there's almost too much of that to go around today."

  
He looked at her and he smiled. "I'm Lorenzo. What's your name?"

  
She said nothing.

  
"Well now, that's mighty rude." His gaze shifted over her shoulder towards the carts. "I wonder if your friends could be convinced to be any kinder."

  
She glared at him, felt herself burn with the hatred. "Yasha."

  
His smile widened. "There, was that so hard?" He thought he had found her leash. He looked like that was all there was to it.. "Yasha, Yasha, Yasha, now where have I heard that name before?

  
The only dogs in her village that were anything close to pets belonged to an old man who lived at the edge of the village. Yasha does not remember the old man's name, but she remembers that he had enough money for some land and a fence to put around it to protect the rocks he was trying to turn to crops. She remembers gathering with other village children to look over that fence with hunger and longing. Sometimes one of them would get too close and the dogs would charge from the house, barking and snarling. The old man would laugh and goad the children to step closer. He would brag that his dogs were kept hungry and vicious and would love a taste.

  
"Tell me Yasha," Lorenzo said. "Do the names Beau and Molly mean anything to you?"

  
She tenses up in spite of herself.

  
"Hmm. I'll tell you what," He leaned in to bring his face next to her ear while one hand held a tight grip on her chin. That grip was the only reason she didn't turn and try to bite his nose off. "I know a secret. You stay with us until we get back to base, and I'll tell it to you."

  
He straightened up then, looking to his followers. "But I think for the meantime we'll give you another reason it would be wise to stay with us." With that he walked away, confident that he had found her leash.

  
Yasha had been terrified of the dogs and the old man, but one day her hunger outweighed her fear. On shaking spindly limbs she climbed the fence to the garden. Her limbs shook so much that she tripped on the rocks and sent them scattering with a loud clatter. She had frozen in terror, waiting for the dogs to bear down on her and eat her up, knowing her legs were too weak to run. They did not come.

  
When the fear of imminent death had faded from her enough that she could move she reached out and snatched up a cabbage, not even pausing to brush the dirt from it before shoving it into her mouth. Her need to eat warred with the knowledge that eating fast right now was certain to make her vomit. She ate the whole head on the knife edge of just slow enough. She had then looked to the house.

  
Yasha did not have to go to the house. All that mattered was the food was there and the dogs were gone. She went anyway.  
The old man lay on his kitchen floor in a puddle of red that stemmed from his throat. It had been torn out. It was not the only piece of him that had been ripped away. His dogs lay on the floor next to him, and they turned their red stained muzzles to face her. They did not attack. They did not growl or move or do any of the things Yasha had seen them do before. They looked ready to defend themselves but too sated to attack.

  
Yasha closed the door and headed to the garden. She gathered up what vegetables she could carry and ran home to her family.  
This was what the world had told Yasha, the bedtime story it had rocked her to sleep with. Dogs are always always dangerous, and there weakness in a leash. Lorenzo had yet to learn that lesson.

  
His thugs beat her then. The restraints on her wrists and ankles meant that she couldn't curl in to defend herself. Other than that, the beating was just physical pain, almost boring in how mundane it was.

  
Yasha had faced down far worse. The memory was easily called up, recently gifted by her god. Yasha's past was a pile of corpses she had clawed her way out from under. This would not break her.

* * *

  
They threw her in the cage. It took her a moment to gather herself, to grow used to the feeling of having a rib brush against her lung without the sound of a wheeze to accompany it. When she looks up Jester and Fjord looked stricken. Jester determinedly snuggles up to her side. Fjord hovers as best he can with all his limbs in chains, and she nods and then he comes to rest at her other side. Like that they go to sleep.

* * *

  
Yasha stood in a familiar field made strange. The sky above was brimming with dark clouds, thick and roiling like it would boil over. The grass around her was blue in the dim light. She turned and Molly was standing across from her. He had his carefree and devilish grin, but she had no idea what he was smiling for. His colorful coat was ripped and filthy and he had cuts all over his body. There was blood dripping from his lip.

  
She waded towards him, her arm outstretched. She felt the grass tug at her feet, and then she felt something that was not grass pull at her. She looked down to see an arm sprouting from the dirt like it had grown. It was latched onto her ankle. She saw another appear out of the ether and grab for her, felt something on her back and at her waist. She bolted forward, trying to avoid their grasp as, all around her, hands reached out to grab at her and pull her back. She focused her eyes on Molly and the growing distance between them as the hands began to pull her back and overwhelm her.

  
With a massive cry she planted her feet and began to press forward towards him. The hands were still there, still grasping, but the weight began to fall away. Her steps were slowed but deliberate. The rush and urgency fell away. She was going to make it to him. There was no possibility of anything else. She would stride over mountains and wade through the seas and she would make it to him because she was Yasha, Yasha who had promised to come back. She did not know this in her head but simply felt this truth sewn into the core of her being. It was a part of her like a hand or a memory. The weight of the world would be light as she walked.

  
And then a hulking figure rose up out of the grass, swallowing up Molly from view. She had the briefest moment to recognize the solid form of Lorenzo, to see the glint of metal hidden in the grass. Molly's head barely peeked out from the wall of muscle between him, his smile unchanged. She tried to scream out a warning, but no sound left her throat. All she could do was watch as Lorenzo spun his glaive, arcing it up from the ground and thrust forward into Molly's chest. She could see Molly lift up the force of the blow.

  
Yasha screamed again, then. It felt less like the pressing of air from her lungs and more like her chest was collapsing in on itself. She felt her stance against the hands give out and she began to fall backwards. In the moment before she was pulled under the mass of hands she saw Molly, his devilish smile, his burning red eyes still open.

  
And then she woke up.

  
Jester and Fjord remained where they had snuggled into her side. The cage remained unchained, the familiar bars against the grey bounds of the illusion. Her last pair of shattered cuffs still lay in pieces on the ground. There was no moonlight filtering through.

  
Yasha stared out at the cage unblinking until she thought her eyes would fall out.

  
She felt the future she had seen stretched out before her die. Whatever happened, there was no surefire certainty that she would come back to Molly. She had been assured the opposite. And a lonely road stretched ahead where she would never ever see Molly again. She hadn't gotten a chance to say goodbye. It had been a fantasy, even then, that she would. But she had always thought it would be a fantasy that would be ended by her death. She had never thought she was going to outlive Molly and so she had never prepared herself for it.

  
So this was the secret Lorenzo meant to break them with. She had to figure out a way to tell Jester, to tell Fjord so that their grief would not let their captors overwhelm them.

  
A flash of anger at that thought. Yasha had lived with such a rage all her life and now it flooded back to her full force. Lorenzo would not break her with this secret. He was not worthy. He could not break her for she was his death. She was inescapable and constant and she was coming for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my real life friend and real good beta [REDACTED], I would die for you. Without you, this work would not be posted.  
> This is officially the longest work I've ever posted. I'm aware of its flaws, but I'm also aware that it's done and it's here and I am so proud of myself for that. With that in mind I'm not looking for critique but please feel free to comment and kudo!


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